If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

If I were to place a frame into a hive...hypothetically speaking, with only a bit of comb or foundation across the top or even extending midway down, would the bees fill in the rest of the frame to the bottom bar? I am thinking that they would fill in most except for the bottom corners, right? or wrong?
Jason

But the short frame was built down to the same lower level as the frames it was placed in between. I was thinking that if I staggered these frames, I could take out the frames that was built 'freehand' and place them together in one box. Then they'd have their custom built comb together.

I may add some more this year to see if we can accomplish this. We, as in, the bees.

I pulled that frame last summer and inspected and yes they had built a cluster of drone cells. I cut that section out. I haven't seen that frame since that time but they have probably rebuilt it back.....Done Late in the summer though, so it was probably used to store honey...

Supplying drone foundation or cells and then culling the brood is an alternative for keeping mite levels down. It can be employed as a part of integrated pest management (IPM). The drone eggs attract the mites, once capped you can pull the frame and freeze it to kill the brood and mites. It is a technique to keep pressure on mite levels in the hive. Put it back in and they will clean the comb for another round of drones or for honey storage. The goal of developing hygenic bees is for the bees to start destroying the infected brood themselve.

It's labor intensive but another non-chemical technique for a small operator to employ. Can be done when other chemicals cannot be used.

Last year when I figured out that my slatted rack was on up side down I cut off ten strips from under the frames of PC that were about three inches by twenty of all stud (drone) brood.

It took me hours to remove all the larva and inspect for mites. Out of all that I found three cells with mites. To assume that you have mites in your stud cells, or that you are removing mites because you are removing the cells is not always true.

A healthy colony needs to have a certain percentage of studs, and they will spend the energy to make sure that they have them. I think that removing them is retarding the colonys vigor and the resources that they could have spent making you honey. If that colony is a good breeder prospect, you need those studs out there doing their work.

When I started beekeeping years ago, using starter strips was popular. It never worked for me. The comb they built was just nasty. This could be attributed to the bees or to the flow or some unknown quantity. They weren't building drone cells because they needed them either. If it works for you use it but it doesn't work for me.

Bringing small cell into the discussion a bit. In small cell hives, successful mite breading occurs "mostly" within drone cells and thusly the mites are mostly found on drones. At the end of the season when the drones are evicted from the hive, so is the largest majority of the mites.

Although in large cell bees, the mites also attack the workers, if the drone population were allowed to go fairly uninhibited, one might yet find a reduction in mites when the bees are allowed to manage their own drone population. Although large cell worker bees still house v-mites, v-mites still prefer drone brood.

While mites prefer to develope in drone cells they will readily get onto workers . Evicting the drones won't necessasrily evict the mites. If you remove the drone brood before it emerges, you can eliminate some mites that way.